Virgin keeps better US company than Qantas

Michael Pascoe

Here’s the bad news if you’ve been saving up your Qantas frequent flyer points to use on its American partner airline – it’s the second worst of the 10 major US carriers.

In the domestic Australian airline battle, Virgin has scored a point for the better company it keeps as its two US partners. Delta and Virgin America are ranked first and second in the AirfareWatchdog.com overall annual ranking of airlines’ tendency to bump passengers, lose luggage and delay or cancel flights.

Whenever having a whinge about some aspect of two main domestic carriers, it’s long been a consolation that it could be worse: you could be flying domestically in the US.

United had the highest percentage of “boarding denials” (bumped passengers) and the lowest customer satisfaction score of the 10 major American carriers. While JetBlue topped the customer satisfaction score with 79, United only managed 60.

Qantas’ partner, American, wasn’t much better. It tied with US Airways on 66 points to be one rung above United.

It looks like whatever romance there once was about flying has long since flown out the window in the US. MarketWatch.com reports that while some airlines are better than others, the industry overall is hated by consumers. The American Customer Satisfaction Index ranked airlines 40th of the 43 industries it measured.

P.S. Meanwhile Australian domestic passengers seem to increasingly unite to minimise the discomfort of flying. In a week with a SYD-BNE-SYD-MEL-ADL-PER economy itinerary, I didn’t notice a single seat reclined onto a fellow traveller in breach of the unwritten code. Well done, Sky Warriors!

(The PER-SYD leg, the real tester of resolve? Don’t know – when north of the curtain, don’t look back.)